As of today, the broken sprinkler head on the SE corner of Cary Park continues to release water steadily into the gutter. It has been one week since I first noticed it, and it has been 5 days since the leak was reported to the city.

This past Friday, as I left the house, I spotted two white City of Fresno trucks in Cary Park. Repairmen were looking at the sprinkler heads, two days after my initial blog post about the daily watering of Augusta Street. When I came back in the afternoon, the busted sprinkler head at the SE corner of the park, which had been quietly releasing water into the street since at least the start of the week, looked like it had been dug up and presumably repaired. At a glance, the curb looked dry. I then posted a tweet saying that the city appeared to have fixed and adjusted the sprinklers. I felt happy and relieved. The city said it would fix the problem and it looked like they did.

But then I noticed on Saturday that a bigger plume of water had formed in the gutter alongside Holland School. On Sunday, I walked over to check it out and I was heartbroken to trace the source: The same busted city sprinkler head at the edge of Cary Park was again flowing. And it’s still flowing today. I’m not a landscape guy, so I’m not sure how these kinds of repairs work, but it seems like this water leak must be coming from somewhere deeper than the sprinkler head at the surface. I’m not sure when the city plans to come back. I hope it can be fixed soon, so I can get back to focusing on not-watering my own (mostly brown) yard!

Local journalist Joe Moore and the news team at Valley Public Radio have invited me to come on their Valley Edition program on Tuesday to talk about “drought shaming” and my blog posts from last week. Also appearing will be city spokesperson Mark Standriff, as well as someone from the state water board. I’m looking forward to seeing how the conversation develops. The show airs live on FM 89 from 9 to 10 a.m., and the re-broadcast airs from 7 to 8 p.m. I think our segment is scheduled second, and it’ll run for about 15 minutes or so.

In the comments section of my second blog post last week, Mr. Standriff invited me to ask more questions about the city’s water plans. He pointed to 10 “water conservation representatives” that the city apparently has on hand to respond to residents. Among other things, I’d like to know more about what exactly those folks do. (The Fresno Bee less flatteringly called those 10 city employees “water cops” in their Sunday cover story on the drought.) If the VPR segment runs short, I’ll post more questions here so that Mr. Standriff and the city can respond in full and so that others can chime in too.

So first, the good news.

After I wrote a blog post yesterday calling out the City of Fresno for its daily watering of Augusta Street alongside Cary Park, a wide range of friends and strangers on Facebook, Twitter, and in local media responded by sharing, retweeting, and engaging with the story. This morning, as I made my morning walk, the sprinklers were off for the first time this week and the city’s overwatering of Cary Park was paused–for now.

Now, the bad news.

As my new video above shows, there’s still a busted City of Fresno sprinkler head on the SE corner of Cary Park, where the water has been leaking into the street 24/7 for at least four days. The broken sprinkler head is on the edge of the park where people with cars–including city vehicles–often drive over the curb and onto the park’s grass. Local journalist Mariana Jacob and a news crew from ABC30 captured the quiet gusher in action yesterday as well, as part of their story on the challenges of water wasting that both the city and others are facing. It aired last night on ABC30’s 11 o’clock news.

Here’s what upsets me about the city’s response. In the ABC30 story, the city’s public works director, Scott Mozier, blames the homeless for the broken sprinkler head, rather than accepting responsibility himself. He says: “People [are] vandalizing and breaking into boxes to be able to get water out of the system, and sometimes that’s damaging the irrigation system.”

The homeless? Really, Mr. Mozier? Yes, the city’s public relations strategy for owning up to its own water wasting and lack of oversight and prompt fixes to public parks seems to be to blame the homeless, some of the most vulnerable people in our city, a group that our mayor and city manager saw fit to flush from downtown in a series of removals the past two years. A friend of mine on Facebook yesterday commented that he’d heard from neighbors near Einstein Park that sometimes the city would run the sprinklers in that park all night in order to keep the homeless from sleeping there. I thought that might have just been a rumor, but perhaps giving the city the benefit of the doubt on having such a strategy would be too kind.

So, let me be clear.

First: Dear city, please come and fix this gushing sprinkler head in Cary Park. Mr. Mozier told ABC30 that when fixes are reported, “We will be jumping on that. If there’s a repair that needs to be made, we’ll make it happen.” How about today?

Second: Dear city, own your mistakes and stop blaming others. If the city’s high-paid communications director, Mark Standriff, is asking local journalists (like VPR’s Ezra Romero, in the above photo’s Twitter exchange) to give the city a chance to have its voice heard, it better be ready to point the finger at itself when necessary.

Finally, as the city prepares to move us to “Stage 2” watering restrictions on Aug. 1, which will include fines for violators who run water unchecked into the street, I ask this question: Is the city prepared to fine itself the state-mandated $500 per day for mistakes like this broken sprinkler head in Cary Park, as it seems poised to fine residents?

The city says to call 559 621-5300 to report problems you see with the city’s water wasting in parks and medians. I say, take them up on it.

Local news outlets reported Tuesday that the City of Fresno would be implementing “Stage 2” water restrictions beginning Aug. 1, in response to our state’s historic drought. That means that not only will the city be limiting residents to outdoor watering only two days per week, but that the city would also be stepping up its monitoring and fines for violators.

The move to fewer watering days seems long overdue to me. But I have mixed feelings about the move to more monitoring and fines when the City of Fresno itself continues its wasteful watering all over town. Case in point: the daily watering of my block of Augusta Street, next to the thick, green grass surrounding the baseball diamonds at Cary Park behind Fashion Fair Mall.

I’ve been taking my morning walk at 5 a.m. every weekday this summer, and the city has faithfully been watering both the park and a big stretch of Augusta Street every weekday as well. Let’s ignore for a moment that the current water restrictions on residents limits them to three days per week and that the city breaks its own rules by watering every weekday from 5:15 until 6 a.m. Let’s focus instead on the persistent lack of lawn trimming around the sprinkler heads, to prevent puddling. Let’s focus on the misdirected streams of water that spray halfway into the street each and every day and that blanket the full street from curb to curb with sprays on days like today when there’s just a bit of a breeze. And let’s focus on the multiple pools of standing water throughout the park caused by daily overwatering, creating ideal conditions for Little Leaguers and walkers to sink into the mud, twist their ankles, and fear mosquitos. (Hello, paging vector control!)

Although “drought shaming” seems to be growing in popularity in California — TV stations all over the state and even The New York Times have widely reported on the trend — I’m not at all interested in spying on my neighbors. One of my neighbors, in fact, saw me making photos of the city’s wasteful watering this morning and felt the urge, without prompting, to defend his own watering habits for his putting-green perfect lawn. His water guilt is his own. But what I am most interested in is some basic accountability from our fair city.

Mayor Swearengin, City Manager Rudd, and all the parks employees out there: When are you going to follow your own rules? Please stop watering Augusta Street every day, and please stop overwatering Cary Park.

UPDATE: The city tweeted at me the following reply this morning, a couple hours after my post went up. Let’s hope their parks people follow up as quickly as their social media people do!